Stars colliding/meeting up with each other

[Bladibla]

How likely is it that when stars are orbiting the centre of a galaxy that two stars will meet and be locked together and orbit each other or collide?

 

[carlos_dfc]

EXTREMELY unlikely

In a few billion years time, when our Milky Way galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy, collisions will still be very VERY rare.
The spaces between stars are IMMENSE, so the chances of any two random stars colliding with each other are negligible.

Stars DO collide though - bt almost always they are stars that have been orbiting each other for a LONG time, with a degrading orbit - or maybe one of them has shed some matter in it's death-throes, affecting the orbit enough to cause it to degrade.

Some Gamma ray bursts are thought to be caused by either two neutron stars coming together, or possibly a neutron star and a black hole

 

[ocalhoun]

Seems to me that it would be quite common, depending on the time frame you're thinking of. Sure there's a lot of space there, but there are a lot of stars as well, and they all have plenty of gravity to pull them towards each other.
If you're thinking of the time frame of a human life, then they are very rare, but thinking by the time frame of a stellar life, they are common.